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Maintaining a comfortable temperature inside your home may be challenging in the warmer months. If you leave your air conditioner on throughout the summer, you may find that your monthly utility expenses skyrocket to an unsustainable level.
Because there are more daylight hours in the summer, it is a common period for people to work on improving their homes. Keep your cool with these helpful recommendations for home design that will assist you in creating an environment that is conducive to relieving the effects of the heat.
Insulate your Home
When people think about insulation, they frequently picture it as a way to keep their homes warm. Nonetheless, this is not the only case. Insulation is also essential for keeping your home cool in the summer.
If you are working on a less extensive home improvement project, you will want to ensure that you insulate your ducts to prevent any leaks, including those in your attic and walls. Insulation in the form of spray foam, rigid foam boards, and batt insulation are all excellent methods for controlling the temperature inside your home.
If you are undertaking a more extensive home improvement project, such as upgrading your existing space or cleaning out your attic (look at the “before” photo from this Phoenix insulation removal company and you’ll probably feel better about whatever shape your attic currently is), you must select the appropriate building supplies. Because the components you require have a large thermal mass, this effectively indicates that they can store heat.
Even if you are not performing big repairs, covering a wall facing the summer sun with a material such as brick will significantly help absorb heat.
Treat both the Inside and Outside of your Windows
The addition of interior and exterior window treatments is an additional item that will help keep your home relatively cool during the summer months.
Window treatments make your home more aesthetically beautiful, but they can also reduce the indoor temperature. Choosing the proper drapes, curtains, and blinds is essential to keep the heat out of your home. If you close the blinds, you may block the sun’s rays. Light-colored curtains and thermal shades are the most effective at preventing heat transfer.
Use Your Appliances Savvily
Using your appliances throughout the day might be difficult when the sun is at its greatest position in the sky, and you are trying to keep your home cool.
You might want to think about doing your laundry at night after the sun has gone down so that your house will be cooler during the hotter parts of the day. Turn off your oven and cook your meal outside on the grill or use one of the other methods available. To avoid the worst effects of high heat, avoid cooking. When cannot be, the ideal times to do this are early mornings and late nights.
Install an Automated, Programmable Thermostat
You can only use an air conditioner while you are home, so it’s important to have a controlled, programmable thermostat in your home. The least expensive thermostat types allow you to establish four cycles that repeat every day until manually overridden. The more costly models will enable you to customize settings for each weekday and weekend day.
These thermostats can get set up easily and come with detailed instructions. Loosen the wires from the terminals on the rear of the old thermostat to remove them. This system may have four wires on the back, two for each A/C and heating unit, which you should reattach to the terminals on the replacement model. Thanks to the AA batteries, you will preserve the settings if the power goes off.
Close Off Unoccupied Rooms
If you do not have any immediate plans to use any unoccupied rooms, you should lock them off. Turn off the vents, close the door, and stuff a towel into the space that gets left between the door and floor. After that, you will no longer be responsible for the costs associated with cooling that room and the rest of your home.
Make Outdoor Improvements
Your property’s appearance will benefit from outdoor upgrades, and they may also help your home remain at a more comfortable temperature. You could want to add awnings to shade your windows and doors, or you could try planting trees that provide shade to provide shelter for windows directly exposed to the sun.
If you want to be able to work on your deck or patio, you should use materials that reflect heat. Additionally, you can reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the structure of your home by painting the exterior of the building with a lighter color.
Use a Fan Strategically
A fan, whose operation costs two to five cents per hour, can reduce the perceived temperature of a room by four to six degrees. Also, a fan works well in conjunction with an air conditioner since the air conditioner’s dehumidifying effect supplies the fan with drier air to circulate.
In summer, put a ceiling fan in commonly used rooms and configure it to rotate counterclockwise. You will save the most money by simply operating the fan when you are present in the room.
A valuable feature is a motion-detector switch that activates the fan when you enter a room and deactivates it when the room is empty. However, if you have pets entering and exiting the room, ensure that you may manually turn the switch off. Otherwise, your pets may cause the fan to operate while away.
Conclusion
Everybody is looking forward to the longer, hotter days with summer’s arrival. However, the heat can be unbearable on rare occasions, even on cloudless days. If it is too hot to go outside, you will want a cool, safe sanctuary in your home where you can go to get away from the heat.
Keeping your home cool may be a challenge this summer, but it is not impossible. Fortunately, you do not have to spend a lot of money to keep your house cool if you follow the tips mentioned above.